One commonly used method to make clay bricks extrudes the clay material crosswise in a continuous process where the length of the individual bricks and their width are the two dimensions formed by the extruder die. In this process to facilitate the drying and firing process of the clay material and to minimize the weight of the individual bricks, up to about 25 percent of the brick's volume may consist of holes that form an interior void. This formed void is typically located through the bed faces of the brick such that a vertically laid wall conceals the void from view. The individual bricks are formed by cutting the extruded clay material with wires spaced at a distance equal to the desired brick height before being sent to the kiln for baking. Also before being baked, the exposed facing surfaces of the bricks and their end surfaces may be textured or colored as desired.
Once formed, the individual bricks have for centuries been assembled by using traditional masonry techniques that employ a bricklayer to lay courses of brick one over the other. With such techniques a relatively thick mortar joint (about 3/8 to 1/2 of an inch) is used between the brick's joints. This process is both labor intensive and has utilized the same types of tools , such as, trowels, plumb bobs, levels and cords, or string lines for many years. As a consequence, the overall process results in low productivity over time and is also wasteful of the amount mortar used. For example, commonly the applied mortar falls to the ground on both sides of the vertical brick wall and is wasted. And when bricks with voids (cores) are used to build the wall, an appreciable amount of mortar ends up in the voids as the bricks are laid side-by-side in different vertical courses.
The present invention relates to a new process that extrudes bricks lengthwise rather than crosswise to allow for the forming of interlocking profiles that will ease the laying of the bricks and also to have voids where the mortar cannot fall. By doing so the amount of mortar used is reduced all as will be described hereafter.